SALT LAKE CITY — They don’t sell Polygamy Porter at Lumpy’s Sports Bar anymore. They also took down the framed picture of the late Mormon leader Gordon Hinckley, the photo with the phony autograph reading, “Funny thing is, after 15 or 20 ‘Kamis,’ I actually saw God.”

Even the biggest Utah Ute bar in town had some respect for Hinckley’s death last January. But no Polygamy Porter? Who can resist that cool taste and the tasteless slogan: “Why have just one?”

But Lumpy’s still has plenty of venom available for any Brigham Young fan in the same area code. Take Howard the plumber. Sitting on a corner barstool, Howard Graham wore a bright red Utah T-shirt covered with Utes buttons. He had a red “U” painted onto his skull. One can assume it was his Dodge Ram 2500 featuring the seven Utes flags out in Lumpy’s parking lot.

“I physically hate BYU,” Graham said. “I work in Provo, and I can’t stand to work in Provo.”

Howard Graham is a Mormon.

That gives you an idea of how deep the BYU-Utah rivalry cuts in this state. It’s a rivalry that dates to 1895, when the first athletic event between the two schools, appropriately, ended in a brawl. It has gone downhill ever since.

It crosses religious lines and family ties. Fists have flown, and so have insults. Utah fans have covered their eyes, and BYU bishops have covered their ears.

On Saturday afternoon, the most important chapter in what the Wall Street Journal ranked as the fourth-biggest rivalry in the country unfolds when eighth-ranked Utah (11-0) hosts No. 16 BYU (10-1). Only one other time in this carnivorous series have both teams been ranked — and never this high. A BCS bowl bid and the Mountain West title are on the line. This entire state is on edge.

Hours before Graham unleashed his bile on BYU on Wednesday, 45 miles to the south in the Wilkinson Center, BYU’s student union, junior accounting majors Nathan Faragher and David Avery were eating lunch.

“It’s more Ute fans,” Fara- gher said. “That sounds biased, but the church bothers Utah fans a lot more. They think BYU fans are arrogant because of the church.”

“It’s not because of the church,” Avery replied. “It’s because the football team dominates every year.”

As they spoke, every campus statue, from Mormon leader Brigham Young to the brass cougar, was wrapped in plastic, ready for Utah’s painting bandits one more time.

Welcome to the Holy War.

Hard-fought games

Avery isn’t quite right. He wasn’t around much when BYU won 19 of 21 meetings from 1972-92. But in the last decade, few rivalries have been closer. Utah has won six of the past 11, but only one of the 11 has been decided by more than seven points. That came in 2004 when unbeaten Utah rolled 52-21. In the fourth quarter, a sign emerged from the Utah section reading, “Where’s Your God Now?”

“It’s a nasty rivalry,” said Florida coach Urban Meyer, the Utah coach that year. “I had to be educated on it. I didn’t understand it. I thought it was just two teams that weren’t far apart, and they go play, like Ohio State-Michigan. With Ohio State-Michigan, there’s some mutual respect. But out there, I had to be tuned in. It’s an ugly deal.”

Added BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall, a native of Alpine, between Provo and Salt Lake City: “I don’t have adequate words to describe it. All I try to express to people is it’s one of the greatest rivalries in college football, regardless of the conference, area or time zone.”

It’s hard to describe but easy to explain. Auburn-Alabama. Ohio State-Michigan. Army- Navy. No rivalry has the cultural clash of BYU-Utah.

Bama fans thought Bear Bryant was a god? BYU fans know they have a god.

Of BYU’s 30,000 students, 98.6 percent are Mormon. Mormons make up less than half of Utah’s 26,000 students. The campuses are only 45 miles apart but continents away socially. Walk around BYU’s beautiful quad area and the students are as clean cut as in a military academy. Facial hair is forbidden. So is alcohol and premarital sex. Provo has one bar.

Utah, meanwhile, has a thriving Greek system and is tied at the hip to Salt Lake City, a town Barack Obama carried in a state that voted 63 percent for John McCain.

Bad blood from the start

The rivalry began not long after the Mormons settled in Utah in the 19th century. In 1895, the Brigham Young Academy and the University of Utah held their first sporting event together. The scoreless baseball game ended in bench-clearing mayhem.

In 1977, BYU waxed Utah in football, 38-8. With less than two minutes left, BYU coach LaVell Edwards put quarterback Marc Wilson back in the game to set an NCAA passing mark with 571 yards. Afterward, Utah coach Wayne Howard went ballistic and said: “The hatred between BYU and Utah is nothing compared to what it will be. It will be a crusade to beat BYU from now on.”

In 1993, Utah kicked a 55-yard field goal to win 34-31 in Provo. Utah fans tried tearing down the goalposts, and the BYU players’ attempt to stop them turned into a students vs. players grudge match. Opposing male cheerleaders got in a fight in 1999, and last year, after Austin Collie’s first-down reception on fourth-and-18 led BYU to a 17-10 last-minute comeback win, he said, “Obviously, when you’re doing what’s right on and off the field, I think the Lord steps in and plays a part.”

Ute fans, such as junior economics major Ryan Bailey, a waiter at Iggy’s Sports Grill in Salt Lake, have been hostile ever since.

“They definitely have this ‘it’s the Lord’s university’ type of thing,” said Bailey, a Mormon, “but the Lord doesn’t care about sports.”

Needless to say, with more than just bragging rights on the line, Saturday’s edition already has battle lines drawn.

“I want to see Austin Collie’s head go rolling off in his helmet down the field,” Graham said.

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